What had I learnt so far?

I have learnt that the first step in developing your knowledge, skills and abilities in any area is to find out where you are now. This means gathering information about yourself and putting it down on paper. From that you can complete what I now know to be a SWOT analysis which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

What had I identified about myself that needed improving?

On of the key job of a team leader in my warehouse is the ability delegate work to warehouse staff and as my SWOT analysis showed, I was lacking in this area. Anyway, having identified this weakness, I said to John, “what do I need to do now”. He replied “You need to decide what you want to do and set yourself what we call an objective, to achieve”. I knew what an objective was, but how do I go about setting one?

John gave me another management tool called SMART and applied this to what I wanted. We both agreed that my objective would be:

“To improve my delegation skills to the point where I can delegate required work to warehouse team members. This will be achieve by
ensuring that the right jobs are delegated in the first place, given to the right people, planned properly, implemented and monitored. I will
achieve this by going on a short, 1-day programme on delegation and then working with my line manager who will allow me to
delegate some work to see how I get on. This will be reviewed on a weekly basis. The whole objective will be achieved by the end
of June 2011”

The reason my objective was SMART was because:

Specific - I have been very specific about what I want to do
Measurable - I can measure my improvement each week
Achievable - My line manager has said I have the ability to do this
Realistic - I have been given the time and work to be delegated by my line manager. I have also agreed this with my colleagues
Timebound - I have agreed to complete my objective by the end of June 2011